Legendary barreler Shaun Tomson starts Positive Waves tour in Surf City

Shaun Tomson says he lost his son at age 15 to what Tomson called a bad decision.

Mathew Tomson died accidentally in 2006 while playing the so-called “choking game,” intentionally cutting off oxygen to the brain.

Shaun, a former world champion surfer from South Africa, found Mathew’s death devastating. It also took his life in a different direction.

“I started writing books, and then I started lecturing at schools, universities, also large corporations,” Shaun Tomson said. “Essentially, my work with large corporations funded the work that I was doing at the schools and universities, because I could do them for free.”

Tomson launched his Positive Wave speaking tour on Tuesday morning at Huntington Beach High School. Starting the tour in Surf City was not an accident.

Shaun Tomson’s book, “Surfer’s Code,” is shown during the launch of his Positive Wave tour in Huntinton Beach on Tuesday.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

After speaking to hundreds of students in the historic Huntington Beach Union High School District auditorium, Tomson got a chance to connect with the Oilers surf team, coach Andy Verdone and his good friend Peter “PT” Townend, another former pro surfer from Australia who now lives in Huntington Beach.

“It’s got to be combat in the water, but it ends at the water’s edge,” Tomson, now 69, told the Oilers surf team. “I mean, PT and I hated each other in competition. At the water’s edge, friendship.”

Tomson was the 1977 World Surfing Champion. His Positive Wave tour, slated to run through May, will bring his message of purpose, resilience and positive thinking to up to 50,000 high school students up and down the Southern California coast.

The tour coincides with the relaunch of Tomson’s surfwear brand, Instinct, which he said is the world’s first social purpose brand.

Former world champion surfer Shaun Tomson launches his Positive Wave tour at Huntington Beach High School on Tuesday.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Tomson’s message centers around his Surfer’s Code, a personal mantra of 12 commitments beginning with the words “I will.”

Tomson still carries his own code in his wallet.

“When people stand up and read their codes to one another, a lot of people cry when they do it,” he said. “Not only is it uniting, but it’s cathartic. When I do it in a prison, and a prisoner stands up and says ‘I will forgive myself’ in front of his peers and starts crying, it’s a very vulnerable, uniting and cathartic process. I love this new sort of wave in my life.”

Huntington Beach High senior Sara Freyre, a decorated junior surfer in her own right who earned bronze at the ISA World Junior Surfing Championships last May in El Salvador, said Tomson’s message was inspirational.

“He’s definitely someone I look up to so much, such an idol in surfing,” Freyre said. “His presentation was so cool, because it was surfing but it was also a lifestyle. It empowered me, definitely just gave me a lot of inspiration in my surfing and in my life overall.”

Shaun Tomson waves to the student audience at Huntington Beach High School on Tuesday.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Junior Logan Moss, another member of the Oilers surf team, agreed.

“If you have a positive mindset inside and outside of the water, I feel like maybe you’ll connect better with the waves,” Moss said.

Tomson said he would be meeting with Rocky Murray, the HBUHSD executive director of curriculum, instruction and categorical programs.

“I really want to get the school districts behind it, getting kids to write their codes as a way to sort of reaffirm self esteem, but also to bring kids together,” he said. “This is sort of ground zero for it ... It’s wonderful to be around this youthful energy.”